It's into the deepening evening, the day after Daeon's memorial services, that Brennan comes calling on Paige. He's changed his clothing from what he'd worn in the exercise yards with Garrett, to something cleaner and more suitable. It's after most people take their evening meals, but any astute observer will by now have realized that Brennan is in part a furnace that takes in food and produces thoughts, plans, and activities-- he can always eat.
If Couth is standing guard, literally or metaphorically, near where Paige is, he'll greet the man cordially and make pleasant smalltalk while Paige readies herself. When she arrives, Paige will see Brennan looking none the worse for wear, physically, but with those same deeper shadows over his eyes and under his cheekbones.
Paige asks Couth to send Liam is he should need her and explains to Brennan that after a long day, the twins are laying down already.
"So, you searched me out, cousin," she says with a smile. She is dressed in blue jeans and sandals and a loose top, definitely for comfort more than anything. "What might I do for you? A game of chess, perhaps?"
Chess wasn't Brennan's purpose in seeking out Paige, but the notion appeals to him. "I may not be much of an opponent tonight, but sure, I'll play."
"I'd offer to cross blades, but rumors say that you've had a day of that already."
"Yes, I've been continuing our young Prince's education in my copious spare time," he says. "He's in a tough position-- old enough to be a danger to himself and others, and not even the benefit of knowing who and what he is. It's a lot to learn in a hurry.
"Not unlike Brooke and Leif," he muses. "How are the Twins? And how are you handling the accelerated childhood?"
"They're good," Paige smiles. She leads them to the room where they had played before, taking one pawn each in her hand and holding them behind her. "How am I handling it? No better or worse than I think that they are. I see such intelligence in their eyes and with their size expect more than they can offer."
She shakes her head. "We'll find the equalibrium I'm sure, and a few days or weeks shipboard will give me time to concentrate on their studies.
"Pick."
Brennan taps Paige's left shoulder to choose his piece.
"It must be difficult," he says, "having them suddenly grown with fully formed personalities. Where are you heading that will take that long to reach by sea?" There are really only two likely destinations, but Brennan has enough grace to let her speak for herself.
Paige produces the white pawn, and smiles, setting them both back on the board and spinning it so white faces her cousin. "Well, it seems the sea route to Xanadu is a virgin path, but I don't truly think it will take that long. Now that the anchor exists, all paths and all that..."
She sits and crosses her legs. "But one can't be sure. And you? Uxmal again?" she asks.
"Not immediately, unless everything starts heading south in a handbasket," he says. "Which, admittedly, it might. Most likely, Paris, but I intend to take the direct route through Corwin's Trump if possible. That's actually one reason I'm here-- the King has sent me with instructions to ask Corwin about his expertise in Dragon-fighting. I was wondering if you had anything useful from him when you spoke to him about Arcadia."
Brennan begins to play what Paige might recognize as a meditative, developmental type game, or series of games. Instead of trying for a victory by his favorite techniques, he's exploring a variant. It may mean he'll lose, and in fact, losing is likely, but the only way to truly test new ideas is to try them against a strong opponent. Accordingly, Brennan's opening looks a little strange, concentrating more on the bishops and rooks, than on the knights.
"Nothing more than the fact that it was his Patternblade that kept her at bay. My father recently reminded me that Pattern, even Patternblades are defensive in nature. I wish I had the math better, but that's the best he's offered at the moment."
Paige's game is a hedgehog varient, strong in defense and reactionary to her cousin's probing. Paige too holds her knights in reserve.
Paige will almost certainly either win, or at least stalemate, the game they're playing. Part of what Brennan is doing is experimenting to see the weaknesses in his own new techniques.
If this displeases her, he'll scrap that and play more traditionally.
"Interesting," he says. "I wonder how his mathematics model the difference of intent between offense and defense? Strategically, sometimes the exact same tactic can be used to either purpose."
Paige nods, her eyes on the board as the Queen advances.
"I've spent part of the day considering how I was going to ask the very same questions of the twins' other grandfather," she admits. "Seems that Elvis has left the building already. You wouldn' have one of his cards to hand, would you?"
"As a matter of fact, I do," he says, tapping the case at his hip. "I was going to ask you a favor concerning the cards, anyway. Will you do a reading for me?"
Paige smiles, "Don't you have someone a little more familiar that could do the same for you?" The tone is light and teasing, and in no way is a refusal of his request.
Brennan shifts, uncharacteristically and uncomfortably. "There's already a conversation I need to have with Cambina," he says. "And it's a dark enough question as it is."
"I'll ask a favor in return, you know," she explains.
"Over and above the loaner of Bleys' card?"
"Call it a woman's perogative," she smiles. "I'd hope that if you find anything about dragon-slaying that might help me, well, that you let me know as well as the King. I had thought that perhaps it was specifically that the blades were forged for defense, but on more thought, it's the Pattern aspect that's defensive. But does that imply that some other Power could be channeled or forged into a blade for offensive use?"
Brennan nods agreement with her request, but adds, "As long as you also return the Trump of King Random to him when you call." Since they're haggling, after all.
"Random's card? Wrong Elvis. I was thinking of the darkhaired guy in the white satin scaled armor. Last I had heard you had Father's card of him, too," she explains. "But I could return it, if you need, as I expect he should be calling me soon."
"Oh, Julian?" Brennan says. "No, I gave that back to Bleys before Grandmother's mandatory family picnic. I was wondering how you managed not to have one of Bleys."
"Ever wonder who the Smith was? I wish I had asked Lilly more about her foster father before she left." Paige keeps the Queen protected while chipping away at Brennan's flank.
Brennan mounts a valiant defense, but the asymmetries he's set up don't co-ordinate well. He is determined to drag it out, though, studying the failure as it progresses. He makes Paige work for it.
He looks up when he catches the implicit capitalization in Paige's words. "To the extent that I thought about, I assumed it needed to be someone in the Family. Oberon, I thought, but I can't say that I ever heard anything that directly supports that." He frowns in thought. "I may have to ask Corwin about that, while I'm there."
"Do that, and I'll be a little more direct with my inquiries with Father, and then we can share," she suggests as she pressures him, now opening her defenses further, but checking Brennan's king to keep him from taking advantage of it.
"Done deal," He says.
"Do you have a particular question to ask the Fortunes?"
"Oh, you betcha. But I have a question for you, first: Do you have cards of Ambrose or Ossian that you can add into the mix?"
"Not to hand, but Ossian might be able to provide one of himself, or you might choose a significator for him. I've not asked your brother about a sitting, yet," she answers. "You confiscated my only way of getting in touch with your brother, unless he decides to call me.
"Not without reason," he says. "He Walked, this morning."
"Again, an apropos significator works just as well in most instances."
"You can do that ahead of time? Much more convenient than letting the cards pick one and wondering if they've done so and how. Still, too many variables. The question I in particular is..." He pauses, to frame it properly. "Where does Brand's Curse manifest?" He sounds willing to accept some opinion on how better to phrase that.
Paige's hand hesitates over a bishop that she was considering advancing to compliment her Queen's attack. Impulsively she drives her king's knight forward instead. "Yes, in traditional Fortune readings, there's not a card for everyone, so the questioner chooses one to represent themselves to the diviner before the reading is made."
Paige's recklessness might be just enough to allow Brennan to force a bitter stalemate in his new technique under development. He resolves to aim for that, starting with a quick series of exchanges to unclutter the board and move to end-game.
"You probably wish the answer quicker than I could make cards for either of them, but perhaps Ambrose can help that. Is there a Trump of himself within your... the deck he currently has?"
"Not in mine, nor in his that I know of. There are also none of me. We had to construct an elaborate protocol of message drops by my Trump and his Sorcery to keep in touch. I would bet Brita either has one, or is working on one, and might be persuaded to make another," Brennan says. Expanding the topic, he adds, "We really need more cards-- Xanadu, and Clarissa's growing line, for starters.
"It might not hurt to wait until we have access to a full deck, though. Do the significators need to be face cards?"
"I'm not half as quick as several of my cousins in the creation proccess, but I can see if I can devote some time shipboard to it, as well as once I settle my family in Xanadu," she agrees.
Brennan nods, obviously thinking that's ideal. "It would benefit the Family," he says, "and probably generate a lot good will."
"No, they need fit the person," Paige explains as she finds her footing again, the queen and bishop beginning the assault again. "For instance, I could be represented as easily by the Satyr or Creation in a reading as I am by my own card. Even the selection influences the reading."
"I'm almost afraid to ask what would signify me," Brennan mutters.
"Depends on the context," she explains. "I could make a few suggestions." The smile is genuine as sees the stalemate four moves away and offers her hand across the board.
"Well-played," Brennan says. "Can we run through that from about the eighth move on?" If she agrees, Brennan sets the board up as it was after eight moves, when the character of the game had been set-- Paige's hedgehog, Brennan's bishop and rook variant-- but not the details.
Paige nods and advances her bishop as she had previously when it's her turn.
Brennan leads the game in a slightly different direction than before, with different emphasis on the rooks and bishops, but the overall theme is still the same. It's a slightly stronger game, as Brennan has already learned considerably from the defects Paige revealed, but she's still seen him play a much stronger game. The strategy is very obviously not ready for prime time.
And, about signifiers, "Go ahead, I've gotten myself curious, now. What would it be for the reading I'm planning?"
"Really it's your choice," she explains. "The reading's your question and the card a reflection of that... But, putting me on the spot?" She sighs and bites her lip in thought for a moment. "The Soldier is too easy, but apropos for most any reading for you. War is a likely answer, so the better to keep it clear. My instinct is to tie you to Winter."
Brennan sees the wisdom behind each of the choices, but says quickly, "I'm the Warrior not the War. Don't forget the Defender, though. Ossian, the Diamond Overlooked. Ambrose, Winter reverse perhaps, or something that represents a gamble. Unless you have a better notion. I wonder if your brother has a full deck?"
Paige nods. "Defender, yes. Eagle, perhaps. I thought Striking the Dragon's Tail might be the right place for this question, but..." She shrugs.
"The last few readings I've done, your father's card has presented itself in fact."
"Oh, really," he says. "Do tell?"
"As the capstone to a few pyramids I've turned in the last few months." She walks to the sideboard and pours herself a drink, and one for Brennan if he's so inclined. "To be honest, I haven't been able to read if it's truly related to him, or like any of the fortunes is just a card that holds several meanings."
"Call me unsubtle and unimaginitive, but if the same card keeps showing up in the same place in multiple readings, I'd think the cards are trying to tell you something. Care to share the readings, or are they personal?"
Paige nods, "Both personal readings, about Marius's trip first and now about my own imminent voyage. In retrospect, I think that it referred to your father's actions being the focus about which current events revolve, such as a loosed uncle marauding cross Shadow and an unbound Dragon."
Brennan nods. "It may not have been his curse, but the result of his actions was the destruction of the Pattern and the opening of old prisons-- Huon's and the Dragon's both. Unsubtlety carries the day."
"You bring a good point though," Paige admits. "I hadn't thought much about Curses." Her queen hasn't advanced to support the bishop as strongly as before. "I suppose one might next ask about Grandfather's."
Brennan quite obviously has. But he gives her a surprised look when she mentions the prospect of Oberon's curse. "I don't believe Grandfather offered a curse. His image appeared in the skies over the Courts, at the final battle, before he undertook his repairs." It seems to be Brennan's day for ancestral quotes, as he recites in part:
"'I leave you, Grandchildren, with my blessing. Take care of the Universe. I do not think I will be able to do this again in the near future.' He didn't leave us a curse. He left us a blessing." He gives a bitter smile. "I'm sure none of us had even considered the possibility of a Death Blessing."
"Speaks to our true natures," she answers as she pushes her pawns forward. "Or is that nurtures?
"I'd like to hope that when my end comes that I could offer the same, for my children and theirs." Paige winks at her cousin. "I think parenting is starting to mellow me already."
"They say kids'll do that to you," Brennan says, blandly. "Not that you could tell by some of our Uncles. I don't know what Grandfather's childhood was like, but I sometimes wonder if our generation has more in common with him, than our parents'. I regret never knowing him."
Paige's hedgehog seems to be collapsing as she looks up. "I had dinner with him once," she says with a smile on her face. Brennan's mate is seven moves out, but she recognizes it and tips her king over.
"So... the cards? I don't know that a full deck will give you clearer answers, but we can look for one if you truly wish."
"Call me paranoid--" Brennan obligingly waits a beat for her to do just that, "--but I think there are just too many variables there to capture without a full deck. And I need to be there, as do Ossian and Ambrose. I'd accept a substitute of Uxmal for Ambrose, but..." he shrugs. That clearly doesn't satisfy him. "Bleys and Fiona and Caine and Amber need to be there, but those I can provide. Ideally, Paris and Xanadu as well. Unless we simply do one now, and one when we have a better deck."
Brennan looks up with an implied question-- how much help is Paige willing to provide, here?
"Of the nine, you need, I can only offer two. And I don't have the speed to create the others. I'd suggest Ossian or Brita, and they could do the reading just as easily," she says with a shrug and perhaps a little annoyance.
Brennan looks like he's bit a lemon when Paige suggests going to Ossian for help-- either with producing Trump, or with the Reading.
"If you still wish me to turn cards in my limited capacity, I'd be willing," she offers, producing the silk wrapped deck. "Else our discussion of significators was little more than theory.
"Divination is about instinct, not intellect. You can't cover every factor, Brennan," she explains, trying not to sound argumentative. "I'd rather read with just the Fortunes than adding all those variables. If your card appears in the pyramid, is it you? Is it the KCOR? Is it another KC we don't have a card of? Is it your ties to someone in the famlily, or even all of us redheads? Imagine that the reading were for Corwin's Curse. I doubt even your father had a Trump for Garnath. It would've been represented by a Fortune."
All of this provokes the patented Brennan scowl when presented with a set of rules and constraints he can't break or change. "One of the many reasons Trumps are not my favorite subject, Paige," he says, with enough grace to try making it sound dry rather than sour.
"I guess this isn't a conversation you've had with Cambina. What do you do with all that time you two spend together?" She smirks and winks at him.
Brennan gives a thin smile. "Not this," he says. "Nor this reading. I'll be seeing her tomorrow morning, I hope."
Paige clears the pieces from the board and shuffles the cards before offering them to him. "Cut the cards and ask the question," she instructs.
Recognizing and accepting the stalemate, Brennan produces his own abbreviated set of cards-- Amber, Bleys, Fiona, Uxmal, and improbably enough, Caine, as well as the borrowed Random-- and hands them over before Paige finishes shuffling.
Paige hands Fiona and Bleys back to him for the moment, as duplicates are likely to make things scan even worse than his other suggestions. As she shuffles them in, he'll notice that the backs are amazingly similar, such that it would take great discernment on anyone's part to tell the difference. There is nothing about Paige's backs that speak of her own hand, not truly. They are of a piece with her mentor's as his are with his own teacher's.
When she [finishes shuffling], Brennan cuts the cards and asks, "Where does Brand's curse fall?"
Paige deals out the pyramid as she's done for years... Past... Present... Future... Virtue... Fault... Fate...
Bottom row:
Uxmal
The Creator
The Peasant (reversed)
Middle row:
Bleys (reversed)
Caine
Top row:
The Priestess
Brennan watches closely as Paige deals out the cards. "Yes, the past is Uxmal. Thanks," he addresses the cards. "I can't see any better way to take that than literally," he says. "Now and tomorrow are the Creator and the reversed Peasant. The Creator, I thought, is a card of life-- new life, parenthood, and green, growing things." He looks up to see if Paige will meet his eyes. "And a turned Peasant is a failure to recognize our basic strengths and cycles, which here, probably means family as well.
"I have no idea what to make of Bleys reversed as a virtue. Caine brings to mind associations of going it alone, sneakiness, and underhanded methods, which could make it a perfect stand-in for me, if it's not literal. What a cheery thought. And the priestess is the intercessor between Gods and man."
He begins working his way back down the pyramid, then: "If I take this as centered around Brand and myself-- not the only interpretation, I know-- then Tayanna is the priestess. It's literal, since she was Brand's high priestess as well as his wife. It associates both Brand and I, and Ambrose has just negotiated her a position in Xanadu to live the rest of her days. The Virtue and Fault are mostly beyond me. Caine could very well be literal, since it was his hand, at the end." He goes silent for a longer pause than normal, then decides not to say whatever he's thinking. "What is Bleys, reversed?" He's still got no answer to that, so he proceeds back down to the last row. "Assume Uxmal is literal. His curse begins there. The Creator can do double duty as well-- Brand in his aspect as father, creator of life and family, and me in the same role. And the Peasant reversed, the continued disruption of the familial cycle. Strife with Ambrose. More likely, with Chantico. But most compelling," he says almost detachedly, "is the disruption of the father-son relationship. Oberon, Brand; Brand, myself; myself, Ossian."
If Paige has picked up any Uxmali, what he whispers under his breath is enough to peel varnish.
Paige hasn't commented, nor does she understand the words, but the smile curling her lip implies that the inflection gives her a good guess.
"There is," he says, "at least one other reading if you start with Uxmal as a stand-in for a green and growing place."
"Of course, Arcadia."
Brennan nods agreement, and listens to her analysis.
"The present, of course, represents me and the future is my reluctance to allow the children to find their place in Arcadia's cycles. My father reversed could be as easily his relecutance to let me scamper off and become a dragonslayer, a virtue keeping me and the children safe. Caine as the fault, I can't parse. I'm not sure what values this Trump holds, yet. The Priestess? That's not a person other than myself. It's my understanding of the relationship with the Arcadian cycles and the twins roles there." She sighs and bites her bottom lip again and dismisses the idea with a little shake of her recently shortened red locks.
"Of course if there wasn't a card for Aunt Fiona in the deck already I'd associate that with her, so since there is I'd think that it was someone else..." She points to the Fate, Present and Past. "All aspected with the moon, the Priestess is she who walks between the heavens and the earth and seeks to understand mysteries, but can go too deep and alienate others. I'm not trying to suggest that your girlfriend is intimately tied to all this, but don't force to see the cards one way or another," she suggests. "Just that we need to take it as a whole.
"I don't know enough about M... Brand's ties to Uxmal to speak as well as you to how it ties there, but I agree, sometimes a comet is just a comet. From that as a basis and considering the ties to the moon, my gut suggests something to do with Tir. The future doesn't fit until I know what Bleys and Caine mean to you."
Brennan nods in agreement with many of Paige's analytic points, especially Fiona. "On the one hand, I might think that the threats to your children are just natural consequences of Brand's actions upsetting all the careful prisons that Oberon and the others had constructed. And Bleys still thinks putting people in prisons is a great strategy.
"On the other hand, the superposition of our two possible readings could point to a general theme. A vector of striking back at his siblings through their grandchildren, and the nieces and newphews and children with the gall to oppose him or survive him through their children..." He shrugs, definitively.
"You're the questioner, word association time... One word answer.... Bleys."
"Father-figure." Brennan blinks, evidently a bit surprised at his own answer.
Paige's expression doesn't change enough that she seems at all surprised.
"Caine."
"Underhanded," he says with a faint smile. It's not something he really considers a flaw.
"And in your understanding of those words, what's the opposite?"
"Opposite of father figure? Son, I suppose. Although whether that's me as son of Brand or Ossian as my son, I don't know. And the opposite of underhanded is honorable, which I think I'd associate with Gerard as much as any... no," he pauses, and feels out an idea in his mind. "Julian."
"Interesting," she says touching her father's card. "I had originally considered the reversed most literally as not-Bleys, which instinctively I took for you."
Brennan's eyebrow raises, but he frowns. This is obviously not a path he would have considered, even though it led notionally to the same place.
"Underhanded or Uncle Caine himself a fault against your strength, interesting."
"And troubling," Brennan says. "Fighting fair is for suckers." He's still frowning, worrying something in the back of his head, and it's not the interpretation of Caine's card.
Catching his gaze she scrunches her brow slightly, "Adding variables to the equation might've produced a more accurate solution set, but I'm not sure that it did anything more than make the equation more complex."
Brennan thinks it over for a time, looking through the cards at something else. When he looks up, his true age is in his eyes. "You don't seem very surprised, Paige. Did you know? Did he tell you?"
"Ossian?" she asks, her eyes widening just a bit. "I guess I just was focused a little more on the cards. But it scans, including your father's interest in him."
"I meant, did Brand tell you," Brennan says. "And I think my paternity explains everything about his interest in Ossian." There is the faint sound of molar enamel grinding together, before Brennan notices and, with effort, stops.
She shakes her head in negative.
"I assume you guys have spoken about it?" Paige wonders aloud.
He nods.
"Given my current perspective on parenting, you might try to see the upside of a kid that can already read and write and doesn't fight you on the whole wearing clothing thing."
"You'd not change things, then? You'd keep it all the same, twins with fully formed personalities that you had no hand in guiding?"
"I'd change a million things if I could," she admits, her eyes not meeting his. Her thumb and middle finger pinch the bridge of her nose trying to draw away the tension.
"To be honest, the first one being that they'd still have a father," Paige says when she looks up to him. "I was into my second century before I ever knew my own. I don't want that for them."
She grins half-heartedly. "Sorry, not your problem. You've got your share, including I suppose, the idea that I might've slept with your son." Her eyes are sparkling again, the weight lifted from her shoulders for a moment. "You know what a girl like me can do your reputation."
"I did ask," Brennan says, which makes it partly his problem for at least as long as they're talking together. "And I may have given Ossian just that-- a father he met in his second century, and an absent mother."
The notion of Paige sleeping with Ossian is waved away through silence.
"You can see, now, why I wanted a fuller set of cards for this reading." His knuckles crack of their own accord, as his hands tighten into fists. "Even more than how did he know, what did he want with him?" It's rhetorical, but invites speculation.
"Some pictures on pasteboard aren't going to answer that, Brennan," she soothes, her long fingers coming to rest on one of those fists.
Brennan's normally warm hands are about as cold and hard as stones.
"If they revealed those sort of mysteries to even someone half as talented as Cambina believes that I am in divining, do you think that I could've been that blind to who he truly was? That it would've taken this many years for me to come to terms with what he did?"
There's nothing for that but to shrug.
"I can hazard guesses, based on his relationship with me, but they'd be nothing more than that," she finishes. "And you're smart enough that you've thought of those angles already."
"Most of them, I'm sure," he says. "I wonder if he knew that, someday, I was going to come back and deal with him once and for all. Another few hundred years would have been enough, but he forced my hand-- everyone's hand-- with Martin." Another grinding of molars and a pronoun shift. "He could have gotten himself killed, Paige.
"How I hate this family's tendency to eat its own young. Another problem we share."
"And something I plan on eradicating," she agrees. "But which he?"
"Ossian," he begins, "could have got killed. And Brand," he finishes, "I would have come back to deal with. Regardless."
She nods. "The latter I got, it was your son I wasn't sure about. And, yes, any of his students were at more risk than they ever knew.
"That's past. He's still left us more than enough problems, but these dangers aren't catching us unaware."
"Needing to kill him is past, yeah, even though I think I hate him even more now that he's dead. Do we see all his curse has set in motion? I didn't live this long on optimism, Paige." His hands flex again, but his fists can't really get any tighter.
Then he blinks, rapidly. "Brand, a curse. Oberon, a blessing. No one's even thought about Deirdre, have they? Except Marius."
"No, I'll admit I haven't been going looking for trouble," Paige shrugs. "Maybe she didn't have time to voice one, and for that matter, perhaps Brand didn't either."
Brennan concedes the point with a nod, and has more to say on the subject, but lets Paige finish first.
"Maybe the cards are telling me that his problems were left in Uxmal, and we're only creating new ones by assuming he cursed us, and we're jumping at shadows, and overlooking the cycles, or something... that keeping distance from my Father is the best course.
"Hells, how come no one is worried about my curse?"
Here, Brennan smirks in spite of his mood.
"It doesn't have to be a death thing, as King Corwin has proven. How about Huon's or Finndo's? I could lose myself looking in the cards for this.
"I've chosen to live, instead."
"I was thinking as much in terms of the simple fact of her death, as her Curse or Blessing or Testament," he says. "And to be more literal and logical than you intend, I'd think Osric's or Finndo's are either past their shelf-life, or they're simply worked into the fabric we've all grown up in."
He sighs.
"Yeah, I know-- I'm in a mood, aren't I? But it's not in my nature to avoid problems and hope they go away, even if it takes decades or centuries of work to get rid of them." He snorts. "One of the biggest differences between Bleys and I is that it's not in my nature to just try and contain them or use them, either. And Paige, I can almost feel it swirling in the ether. This news about Ossian just... opens more possibilities.
"So I choose to fight."
"I want to, Brennan. Gods how I want to!" she says as she stands and walks to a window. "I want to run off and find a Pattern sword that will let me face The Dragon and end it for once and all.
"Be glad that you have those options."
"I know, Paige, I know. I don't know that I could do the same in your position." He picks his head up with respect in his eyes, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "It gets a little tiresome, I imagine, that my first counsel to King and Prince on these matters is so often a prioritized list of people and things to kill." He gives a rueful smirk, "But it's what I do, and I'm good at it."
"Your kids," he says, "Worry me. For their own sake as much as for their potential. I'll be talking to Corwin about a broad range of subjects, I hope. I've already said I'll ask about Pattern Blades if you share what you get from Bleys. Anything you don't want me to say about the Twins?"
"I don't know," she says looking back with a smile. "But I appreciate the offer. They spent the afternoon rolling in the gardens with Robin, so I assume there's enough rumors about the demon children running about the corridors. I know Mace was surprised to find them in wolf form, but I doubt Corwin's going to be, what with Merle and such."
Brennan nods, taking all that in. "I'll let you know if I get anything important or useful." He flashes a quick grin, "But I'm not asking Julian for you."
"When are you leaving?" Paige asks.
"At Cambina's discretion, hopefully. A sea voyage to Paris would do us both good, I hope. I need time to think... about everything," he shrugs. "With Cambina, I can think, and not slide into pointless brooding." A quick smile. "It simply wouldn't be permitted."
"I'm happy for you both," she admits.
The quick smile, again. "Thanks. So am I."
Last modified: 3 March 2006